Last chance for Warriors to avoid scrap in the basement

All the weather forecasts suggest there will be no repeat of the mist that shrouded Worcester's last match against London Irish, though Mike Ruddock's more pressing concern is dispersing the tactical fog that has engulfed his team.

All the weather forecasts suggest there will be no repeat of the mist that shrouded Worcester's last match against London Irish, though Mike Ruddock's more pressing concern is dispersing the tactical fog that has engulfed his team.

Tonight's visit from the Exiles has the look of make or break about it. If Worcester can sneak their second Premiership victory of the season against the team that beat Leicester Tigers last weekend they will regain the momentum and leave Leeds Carnegie adrift at the foot of the table.

But if they should fail to do so, and lose for the third game in succession, the Bunfight at the Bottom will truly be under way. The direction of Worcester's season will be determined this evening.

As always between these two contestants the fight for the airways will be crucial. The visitors' Nick Kennedy and Bob Casey have been the finest lineout pairing in the division for the past three seasons while the hosts' Craig Gillies and now Greg Rawlinson aren't too far behind.

But to give themselves a chance to win that competition Worcester will have to play both harder and smarter than they did at the Twickenham Stoop last Saturday when a negative penalty count of 13-4 deprived them of any chance of victory.

Harlequins were poor, Worcester were never even that good and could not survive playing the last 20 minutes with first Drew Hickey and then Sam Tuitupou in the sin bin.

As a result their director of rugby has spent the week leaving no stone unturned. Worcester trained under lights on Tuesday night to acclimatise themselves with night rugby and brought in top referee Wayne Barnes to talk them through the multitude of sins committed in London.

He feels sufficiently buoyed to promise his team will be more judicious against Brian Smith's men but not at the expense of competitiveness. All they need is a break and to keep a full complement on the field.

Against Saracens and Quins the damage was wrought when Worcester were short-handed. "Sarries outscored us one try to nil and that came when we had a player in the sin bin and when you take the emotion out of the Harlequins game, step back and look at it objectively, we were only a score away until we had two men in the bin.

"Up until that time we were competitive. It all comes back to discipline."

Worcester had plenty of it when they played at Madejski Stadium two days before Christmas. Tuitupou scored a dazzling individual try and Worcester were on for a 16-16 draw before Sailosi Tagicakibau scooted free with three minutes remaining.

"We deserved a draw at their place," Rud-dock said. "The guys maintain their try had an element of blocking about it. We felt we were really unlucky in that game and unlucky against Newcastle before that.

"We are feeling a bit sorry for ourselves but the reality is we are just not good enough and we have got to get back on track with a spirited performance on Friday."

Most of the men who failed to do just that at Harlequins will have the opportunity to make amends against Irish, with the exception of half back pairing Ryan Powell and James Brown.

The latter, thrust into the starting line-up against Quins, has been just as quickly removed, indeed his place on the bench goes to Shane Drahm who has been called back from Launceston.

Matt Powell returns at scrum half as Rud-dock looks for more fluid conduits between backs and forwards.

Netani Talei is out with knee ligament damage as Tom Wood comes back into the 22.

Both have signed two-year deals that will keep them at Sixways until the summer of 2010 by which time Garvey will have been with the club for four years.

* Two of Moseley's dual-registered King-sholm Kids, Dan Norton and Charlie Sharples, have been called up to play for the England Under 20s in tonight's Six Nations clash with France.

Winger Norton, Moseley's leading scorer, replaces injured full back Greig Tonks in the only change to the line-up that beat Italy 22-13 last time out.

Sharples, who has also excelled at Billesley Common, takes a place on the bench and is set for a first cap while Worcester's Matt Cox starts at openside but scrum half Johnny Arr drops out through injury.

* The Rugby Football Union's disciplinary department has revised the dates of the one-match suspensions imposed on Coventry flanker Danny Hodge and Moseley centre Gary Trueman which were imposed on Monday.

The suspensions were due to run from February 25 to March 2 with both players free to resume playing again on March 3.

The suspensions will now run from February 18 to 24 with Hodge and Trueman free to resume playing on February 25.

The original dates for suspension were imposed taking into account that neither Moseley nor Coventry have a first-team game this weekend. But both players may have been selected for second XV matches or in the case of Trueman, who is on loan, by Worcester Warriors.